


Call it Quits (or Get a Grip)

by MajorEnglishEsquire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Childhood Memories, Chuck Shurley is God, Dean Winchester is Missing, Dreams, Exhaustion, Gen, Memories, Prayer, Season/Series 14, Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-03 20:04:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16332587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire
Summary: “I still love you, you know.”He turns, because the voice isn’t right only to find that the voice is, indeed, completely not right.Post 14.01





	Call it Quits (or Get a Grip)

**Author's Note:**

> *Slight warning for implied past thoughts about suicide/self-harm.

When Sam finally sleeps, it’s only because he finally recognizes himself as being useless.

There’s tired, and there’s useless. He’s been spinning out for hours, now. Giving the same bad orders until Bobby goes from raising his eyebrow to outright giving different orders in the next room.

This won’t work if there’s not one, singular command.

Or at least that’s what he’s convinced himself of.

So he gave Bobby orders _to give orders_ and went to his bedroom to lock himself inside and worry for two hours and then pass out before he knew what was happening.

He’s in the house he shared with Amelia.

But it’s empty, and he knows she and her husband have moved on to someplace more suitable.

The spare bedroom has a window that looks out over the neighbor’s garden. Besides just being with Amelia in the short amount of time they had, looking out that window was maybe the most peace he had after Stull and ever has had, since.

He looks out the window and it’s bright and beautiful and he thinks maybe he’s late to meet her at the neighborhood cookout, but then the bed and walls are faceless and generic and this house doesn’t belong to him and Amelia doesn’t belong to him and peace doesn’t belong to him.

“I still love you, you know.”

He turns, because the voice isn’t right only to find that the voice is, indeed, completely not right.

There are no pictures in the hallway, no curtains in the room beyond him, nothing surrounding Chuck but the doorway.

“Look, I hear you and—and, really, I always hear you. And I still love you, even if I can’t give you the answers you want,” Chuck says.

“This is God’s answering machine,” Sam shakes his head and turns back to just look out the window a while longer. “Leave your name and number and he’ll never get back to you.”

Chuck huffs a breath. “Okay. Harsh.”

“ _Harsh._ ” Sam barks. Turns back to look at him. “ _ **H a r s h ? ?**_ ”

He doesn’t argue. He considers Sam for a moment. Then comes to sit on the bed next to him.

Sam isn’t compelled to get up or, you know, he’d get up. The window is still nice. The garden is still nice. There are butterflies if you wait for them. If you hold still and follow only with your eyes.

He remembers playing trucks out in a garden, once, when they had a sitter in Tacoma. She hummed and planted things and her baby was too young to play trucks with Sam. It was the first time (first of many times) he was ever jealous of somebody for having a mom.

Dean was too old to play trucks with Sam. Or he said so, anyway, until he glued bent paperclips and peeled-off GI Joe decals to them, made markered faces on them and called them _monster trucks_ which was completely suitable.

“Can I convince you to rest?” Chuck asks. “You should be resting, not reliving. You’re fucking exhausted, dude.”

“I don’t need your help resting.”

“No. Your teeth are loose because Kip slammed you so hard and you’re seeing everything in teal out of your left eye because there’s blood in it. You need Cas to fix you up and then you need probably _another_ thirty hours of sleep after-”

“And my brother back, which would help the most, thanks.”

Chuck cannot or will not do anything about that, so he’s quiet.

“I can’t ask Cas to fix me again. It’s like all he does. He just had himself powered down and locked to a chair for a solid day because he needs Dean back so bad that, _even right now_ \- tired enough to be fucking hallucinating _God_ ,” Sam gestures at himself, “I’m still thinking more clearly than he is.”

After a quiet moment he turns, just getting more and more enraged as Chuck stares at the floor. “He’s your son. That’s _your son_ and you don’t even give a fuck how hard he has it right now, and I’m supposed to believe you _still love me_ or that you ever did?? For real, fucko?”

“Okay,” Chuck puts a hand out between them. “Okay.” He takes a deep breath. “While I get the complete lack of respect, you’re gonna stop right there.”

It might be the only time he’s sounded serious since... well, a fucking long time. There was a time, once, when this was a man, just a prophet, and he was scared, and that was real. Or it seemed real back then.

It seemed as serious as Chuck finally is, now.

“You call it what you want, alright? But John had two of you and I have quintillions on top of quadrillions so, yeah, no, actually, you’re not gonna feel the warm-fuzzies all the fucking time. Your world-ending crises, for as dire as they usually are, are actually just a few of the many other impending ends to reality happening at any given time. While I didn’t come here to grant you a miracle and give you answers, I have half a second to spare to tell you I still love you and I’m sorry that’s not enough. Believe me, I know it’s not. And I know I’m not perfect. And I know sometimes you wish I never made you. Fact is, Sam, you have far outrun my usefulness to you. You are powerful and smart, more so than I even planned. I can’t hand you miracles when they should be yours to earn. You’ll keep bleeding for them and that’s a part of your experience.”

“For shit to be just _endlessly hard?_ ” Sam hears his voice break and feels the same kick of sadness in his gut that he did when he left Amelia in this house. When they called a code on his father. When Dean was lifeless ribbons in his arms. When he stopped trusting the world to help them work it out and had to drink a few fucking _gallons_ of demons to go greet Lucifer as a friend.

“Everything ends,” Chuck reaches to palm his head and Sam doesn’t wanna sit there for it, but still does. “Do you want it to end, right now? You think about that pretty often. About how none of this would be your problem if you ended your own pain right now.”

“And Dean dies in agony, locked away in Mike’s meatsuit, and Cas dies in agony probably going up against the bastard, and Mom dies in agony probably helping him, and every fucking soul we saved off that other Earth is completely _wasted_ because I checked the fuck out on them,” Sam presses. “Are you seriously here to tell me to kick rocks and rub my fucking nose in it?”

“Of course not,” His hand is ruthlessly gentle and every moment of it is caring and Sam hates him for that, now, too.

Chuck must get that. Must understand. Because he looks sad, then. So sad. And pulls His hand back and sits away a little.

“The last time you died it was on the other Earth. You were somewhere that I couldn’t see all that well.” He shrugs. “The multiverse is pretty wide and I try to pay attention when they interact too much, but. Well. I think you know it’s hard to get there. So it’s a little hard to see through, too.” He pulls in a breath and puffs out his cheeks blowing it out. “All my doing, of course. I was, like. Trying to concentrate. Or whatever. But, if you can connect me to it, I can see it.”

Sam searches Him for a second. Unbelievable.

He turns back some when Sam is silent and makes a ‘go on’ gesture.

Sam rolls his eyes. “It was—it hurt.” He starts off slowly. “It was violent. It was awful. It was. It was cold. I let go. I stopped... stopped breathing and it was too heavy to fight. Like sinking in water. It was,” his voice hiccups a little. “Waking up because of Lucifer - that was. It was just as bad. Worse, even.” Seeing him emerge from the dark. Always slinking out of the dark to rip across Sam’s tendons in some way. Even when Lucifer didn’t make him bleed, he made him feel like the air was being crushed out of him.

Chuck winces a bit. He thumbs at a seam in the nondescript sheets. “It’s, uh.” He blinks. “Those things are my fault as much as anything.” He shrugs.

Sam thinks if he said ‘sorry’ for everything he was sorry for, it would take years and years.

Sam thinks he knows what that’s like.

He turns back to the window and the garden.

“Dreams are really long. And I think you’re gonna sleep better than either of us assumed. I still have plenty of time to do this,” Chuck says.

And outside the garden turns into that cave. Sam sees it through the row of panes.

Gaunt vampires are breathing their last in the shadows.

One sucks on a rock, savoring it.

Must have been a stone that Sam bled on.

He sees the place from afar and is chilled to find it fascinating.

The vampires do not know they’re watching. Lucifer’s presence is long gone. Humans have been missing for quite some time.

The scene skips back. A few seconds. Then fast rewind, days, weeks, months. Chuck flips his hand through it, when it goes slow, to speed it up.

Hand straight.  
It pauses.

And he sees Dean and Gabe and Cas and himself enter the cave with the survivors, flashlights low and guns high.

Fast rewind again, a long ways, to the starving vampires running in, taking refuge from something.

The daylight or the angels.

The angels.

Taking refuge from-

“Oh,” Chuck says.

“The angels,” Sam says. “The angels allowed them to flourish. The angels...” he takes a breath, horrified to think it. “The angels encouraged them to feed on the humans, to thin out the herd. They-”

“Planned it that way.” Chuck pauses the scene and bites his lip. “The angels, they, um. They’re planners. They do maps and battle plans and digging trenches and building weapons. The whole bit.”

“If Michael encouraged the monsters on his world to go after humans – maybe even made the days darker so they could stalk longer. Maybe drove humans from populated areas into the woods to be hunted by vamps and wendigoes and-”

“If he’s working from the same playbook, he might just be starting over, here in your reality,” Chuck agrees.

“Ours didn’t do that. Before Stull, I mean,” Sam turns to him. “Michael waited.”

“He couldn’t get Dean so he waited for Adam, yeah,” Chuck agrees. “He was patient. He always had these rigid plans.”

“And if the other Michael’s rigid plans are a little different, but he still carried them over here,” Sam motions, concluding the obvious.

“Cas had the right idea, then,” Chuck shrugs. “To parlay with the demons. Only he picked the wrong species.”

“Jesus,” Sam breathes.  
Then flinches. “Oh, god, did I just-”  
Then shakes his fist at himself, “Holy shit, did I-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Chuck cuts him off. “You could end up cycling through that all day.”

He moves the scene, now, to empty grounds. Fast forwards from brighter days, at the beginning of the apocalypse on their world. Some survivors sweep into the clearing carefully, guns in all directions. Fast forward to a camp. To some small structures. To a violent battle. The camp empties. It’s quiet for a while. And a new set of survivors find it. Put up tarps and camouflage the area.

Mom stalks into the clearing.

She assesses their fortifications. She reviews everything with Jack, then Bobby.

Fast forward.

An ambush—  
No.

Dean. Gabriel and Dean and-

Not himself.

Mom stops Dean and hugs him and Dean can’t even speak for grief.

Mom doesn’t let him turn back. Makes him take shelter for a while. Rest and think.

And when Dean grabs his gun back up to go back to the cave.

Sam is there, again. Sam watches himself.

Chuck watches beside him.

Chuck slows the scene on his son.

Lucifer walks up behind Sam and Chuck can’t look away from him.

He is everything horrible that he always was. More maniacal before he died. He was always so twisted that Sam has no idea how Chuck can sit beside him and be heartbroken.

“Yeah,” Chuck breathes. “Well. You’ll never understand that about me.”

He doesn’t make an excuse for it.

He doesn’t have to.

If there are as few angels now as Cas says, Chuck’s first children are mostly dead. In this reality and maybe some of the others.

“I don’t understand a lot of this,” Sam admits. Arguably, if there are so many realities, what does Chuck really have to mourn? He has the formula for the gateway, surely. He can make his way onto those other worlds and see his angels alive and happy.

Chuck fast-forwards and the clearing is battle-scarred and empty again.

He fast-tracks across the landscape and Gabriel is lying dead on the leaves and both Michael and Lucifer are long gone. Slowed to real time, now, the leaves just flutter in a wind that’s not heavy enough to carry them.

The scene stays.

“They’re mirrors. Each universe a mirror with a different imperfection in the glass. Part of why I can’t immediately point you in the right direction is that the Michael who’s riding your brother right now experienced one change in his past. It may be tiny. Itsy-bitsy. I’d have to track back and forth all over time to try and find that one thing. It may be big or it may be real damn tiny,” he squeezes his fingers together.

Unfurls his hand again and the forest is the garden once more. Gabriel’s splayed wings are the stone path. His cold body is a bed of sunflowers wilting late in the season.

Chuck takes a breath. “Obviously the mirrors aren’t supposed to melt into each other.”

“You—” Sam reels a moment. “I get that, but, you can’t make them go back- Charlie and Bobby and-”

“No, you’re right, I can’t and I won’t be the one who expends the effort to do any of that,” Chuck waves him off. “Listen, Sam. This is the place I’ve always-.” He stops. Hesitates. “This world, _this one_ , the one you’ve grown up in? It’s been my focus a lot of the time.” He wavers a moment. “Most of the time,” He finally admits. “I did set those mirrors up with a purpose. But it’s not like it’s just all one huge experiment, okay? Each grew a life of its own and benefited or changed or degraded in different ways from my involvement. I’ve spent time all across them. _All the galaxies in all of them_ , reflecting what’s happened here. And, like I said – I love you, I do.” He seems to swear it, hand to heart, focusing on Sam before he takes a breath. “I love them, too. I love the other Sams. My other children. The other Deans and Castiels and Marys and-” clearly he could go on but he doesn’t.

The expanse of what he’s built isn’t half of what’s happening at any given time, and even he looks overwhelmed at that. They’ve all – every Sam, Dean, Tom, Dick, and Harry in every reality – flourished or raged entirely out of bounds. Entirely out of Chuck’s hands. He had no idea what they’d all become and maybe he wasn’t even prepared to love some of them so much.

There’s got to be at least one reality out there where Lucifer didn’t turn on him. Or after he did, he was contrite or atoned in some way. Some reality where he wasn’t a honed spear of horror buried deep in Sam’s heart. Some reality where it was natural for Chuck to keep acting like his most favored child wasn’t meant to be such a colossal shit.

He went wrong somewhere in this lifetime. And Sam isn’t a father, but he’s sure that probably hurts Chuck.

Odds are he recognizes that, buried within every wholesome and loving version of Lucifer, is the seed of somebody who can come to hate him so much he’d turn reality inside out to conquer the universe for himself.

Which means that, buried somewhere within the lost-cause jackhole that Dean killed was also a _lost son_ with some remnant of love for his Father.

And in some reality Sam made peace with his own father, maybe even saw him live to an old age. In some reality, he grew up with his mother and came to hate her for perfectly reasonable things like missing one of his baseball games. In some reality Dean ran away at 17 and they found him dead on the streets. In some reality, John had a wholesome family life with a woman he met in the Marines and neither Sam nor Dean existed.

In some reality, Dean is already dead.

But what about in this reality?

“I can’t know,” Chuck shrugs. Sam doesn’t have to ask aloud. There is no ‘aloud,’ after all – he’s still dreaming. “I know the Michael in this reality kept Adam with him. I’m assuming he’s keeping Dean with him because I haven’t felt his soul get dragged out. He’s not haunting you, is he?”

Sam has to think about that for a second, feeling a bit like a tool. Of course Dean wouldn’t agree to go with a reaper if Michael killed him. He’d make a fuss, no matter what Billie’s threatened them with.

However.

The more Sam thinks about it, the less any of this encounter makes sense.

Chuck could just peek into a version of reality where this situation has already been sorted out. He could seal the cracks and prevent this from happening. He could reverse time, surely, if the angels are capable of hopping around their own timelines. He can ask Billie if she’s seen Dean.

He could do any number of things.

But won’t.

God’s bastard children, all of them. He loves _the idea_ of them all being alive, but does he make time for the multitudes he’s actually produced?

Hell no.

The silence between them goes from thoughtful to tense and eventually awkward.

“I’m taking the time to try and set you on the right path,” Chuck presses.

“A fraction of a second. That’s what it is, to you. And this dream will turn out lasting hours, to me, when all you really had to spare wasn’t even a measurable unit of time. That is, if I remember my dreams from tonight _at all_. Because that’s how dreams go for humans. And in all Your Vast Wonder,” Sam feels himself sneering, “You get to make it feel like you cared by sparing a split second for me. Wow,” he drawls. “Thanks _so very much_.”

He moves to stand from the bed. Touches the windowsill. Moves past Chuck to leave the room. The route to the back door isn’t what it used to be.

It’s what it was in his apartment with Jess.

He leaves and he’s not on the city street, though, in the apartment he rented near Stanford. He’s on the hill outside the bunker. He lets the door swing shut behind him and climbs into the thin trees.

He walks too far. Finds Chuck waiting, leaning against the rickety remains of a fence on the far side of the property.

Sam stops in his tracks, throws up his hands and gives a pissy little laugh this time.

“Sam-”

“I’ll figure it out my fucking self.”

“You’re trying to do everything by yourself. It’s gonna wear you down. You’ll lose it before you find Dean. You have your mom to think about. And the refugees.”

“What do you care?”

“I lo-”

“ _Love me_ , right. That’s right,” he laughs. “That’s love. To watch your kids break themselves on the edges of all your mistakes and tell them that it means a lot more to keep living if they manage to do it just by pulling up their bootstraps. I’m a fucking millennial, Chuck, I’ve been hearing people say that since I was old enough to clean my own guns.”

He turns and walks to the other side of the lot. Climbs up the other way and sits at the top of the hill overlooking some of the nearby farmland.

In the wide dream landscape, there are angels stepping over every farm.

They are all massive and they push the great, rolling sprinklers that turn over the fields in circles. They move boulders out of the way of tractors. They redirect rivers and move cars from the road to let cattle wander on to better land. They do what they ought not. They do better than what they were taught in their garrisons. They mostly look like Cas, but in robes and sandals and armor and their swords, untouched, strapped to their sides.

Is every dream a mirror, too? Is Chuck already manipulating time to walk slowly after Sam and settle quietly by him on the grass?

“Dad was unreasonable,” he says. “It was _un_ -reasonable of Dad to say I couldn’t go to school. I had a full ride and I was a kid and I wanted to learn and I wasn’t even going to abandon my family until I was straight-up forced to. It was unreasonable of Dad to say what he said to me and unreasonable of him to demand that I stay. So I walked away from him. That’s what I learned. You walk away from unreasonable shit.”

He turns to Chuck.

“Dean and I should have walked away from _your_ unreasonable shit a long time ago. Who sets up the people they love to have their bodies taken from them as a set-up for the apocalypse, huh?? That’s love? That sounds _reasonable_ to you? Dean’s blinded by the love you want the world to be full of. I’m not, Chuck.”

“No,” he agrees. “You’re not. You’ve always been... incredibly reasonable.”

“Yeah, thanks for making that sound like a fault instead of a feature,” because that’s exactly what the tone implied.

“It’s not a _fault_ ,” he sighs, sounding tired. “I love you this way.”

“Stop. Saying. That.” Sam practically hisses.

“I’m sorry the truth sucks! I’m sorry reality sucks!” Chuck’s voice goes high-pitched as he finally gets fed the fuck up. “I’m sorry I couldn’t flip a switch and make your life easier! I came to sit here with you and think it through and figure it out! Fuck, Sam, _nobody_ does more for this planet than you two do. Do you think I feel worse about Lucifer dying than I do about Dean reaching the fucking breaking point, here? I literally _do not have enough time_ to find you in every reality and stop the world from stomping you out, but I’m here now trying to view the whole picture with you so maybe you can figure it out when you wake up!!”

“Listen, _God_ ,” Sam shifts to stare daggers at him, dumping his true title at his feet like red-handed guilt, “I think if you were all you’re supposed to be and you truly gave a shit, you’d hit pause on all the other mirrors and stop acting like I give a fuck that the sky is bright purple and genocide doesn’t exist in one of the other realities. I’m in _this_ fucking reality. I can’t poke my fucking fingers into the other ones and decide which feels the most _fucking cozy_. And guess what, Goldilocks: I’m not obligated to make this reality feel _just right_ for you, either, all because you say you care. They give bibles away for free, here. Your talk is _cheap_ here.”

He turns to stare back out over the fields.

These towering angels are Cas, aren’t they? Trying to keep the world cranking away despite the neglect of the higher power that made them. Trying to live up to the principles that Dean tries to instill in everyone.

Dean said he watched Chuck fade out with Amara. Gone to get back to being a family.

Chuck saved him from the soul bomb inside of him and Amara gave Mom back to them.

Meaning...

Meaning that Chuck is taking time away for himself right now. He’s slipped away from his sister to come here and work this out with Sam.

He showed up specifically to Sam and he probably _really is_ here to work on the problem. To get Dean back.

To show Sam that it always feels like they’re alone, but they’re not.

God really does love them. He just created too many other beings to love and he has to spend a lot of time elsewhere.

He’s here now and Sam’s conscience is starting to prick him.

They are loved. Chuck probably wants to work this out without killing another one of his sons. They are _all_ loved.

“Push him into the cage? With the other Michael?” Sam tosses out. “Somehow get Dean out of the cage, after?”

Chuck is quiet for a moment. “You’d need the rings. And I know the last thing you want to do is make Dean go through what you went through. Another two archangels locked up with him and Adam and-”

“Yeah.” Sam sighs. “Yeah.”

“Every life plays out,” Chuck says. He hesitates. “Mostly I try not to interfere. That’s freedom – letting it play out. Your freedom is freedom from _me_. But I know this other Michael has taken Dean’s freedom from him and I know that’s freaking you out. So. You know. That’s mainly why I’m here.”

Of all the people in all the multiverses, Chuck is explaining himself to Sam.

That’s gotta be pretty damn rare, too.

“I know what you’re gonna say,” Chuck laughs a little. “If I could just show up in person?”

“It would help,” Sam nods. He shakes his head, knowing it won’t happen. He sprawls out and lays back on the grass. A skinny tree casts no shadow over him. It’s only the full, red sky. Probably the backs of his eyelids.

“Start with the vamps,” Chuck says. “Get Cas back on the radio. I know it’s the last thing he wants to do right now, but he has to tune in. If Michael is doing what he normally would – assessing the strength of his men and his armory – he’s gonna see real quick how depleted everything is and I’d be surprised if he doesn’t confront the remaining angels about how they lost their wings and all that.”

Sam rolls his head on the grass to look up at Chuck, cross-legged and calm, watching the distant giants in the fields.

He looks kinda sad.

Sam tries not to care.

But he does care.

Because he’s been talking to this guy his whole life. Praying for help from him and, much as he wants to deny the profession, this right here is actual proof.

This is proof that they’re loved by God.

Chuck must overhear that. He ticks a smile and lets it fade away. Scoots and shuffles a little closer in the grass and snags a blossom from the nearby clover. He artlessly ties it into Sam’s hair.

And Sam lets him.

“The hell is going on with you?” he wonders aloud.

“It’s a lot less complicated than what’s going on with you.” He sighs, twisting Sam’s hair in his fingers. “I’m overwhelmed.”

“Kinda did it to yourself.”

“Kinda, yeah.”

“Amara?”

“Mm. And Lucifer. Jack, I guess. Cas, I guess. I’m.” He’s quiet for a beat. “I guess I was just so curious to see. To see what would happen? And what that’s doing, crossing over here, is destroying things and.” He shrugs, at a loss. “Dean never gave in. He _never_ gave in. He saw what it did to you and he was so glad that you convinced him not to say ‘yes’ to Michael in the first place. To give up so easily? I mean, shit. I’m worried about what seeing that did to Cas. I’m worried I can’t predict what this version of Michael will do. I’m worried that the species is gonna collapse entirely and close off heaven for everyone who dies. I’m worried about the economy and healthcare.” He smiles a little again. “It would be easier if you didn’t care so much, Sam. Honestly, I don’t know if I’d be here right now if you gave up on me.” He cards through Sam’s hair. “You never give up on me. I probably deserved it sometimes, but you keep praying. Whenever I tune in, there you are. I might be an outlet for you, but somehow you’ve become a constant for me, Sam.”

Ever since Sam learned who he was, it stopped being easy to quantify Chuck or God or his own religion or what he was built for or any of the world surrounding him.

Now, for example, he’s skimming his fingers through the grass while Chuck pushes his hair all to one side and it feels strangely like this weird little dude he hangs out with sometimes is gonna love him no matter how much he’s neglected in reality. No matter how much Sam snaps at him or how many demon deals and screw-ups they manage.

“You have other dreams to get to,” Chuck sighs. “I should go. You need a lot more rest.”

“If it’s just a few seconds here and there-”

“I can’t, Sam. I can’t. Honestly, it compromises the structure of the world and all my surroundings when I touch down too often. And it changes the outcomes. I know you don’t wanna hear it, but you’re supposed to write your own endings. If I wrote it for you – if I took it out of your hands – what would that make me? Just a fucking puppetmaster-”

“I was gonna _say_ ,” Sam stops him with a hand to his knee. “If it’s just a few seconds here and there, would it kill you to drop in and complicate my dreams every so often? If this is _really_ all the time you have to spare?” he coaxes.

Chuck grumbles a little and reaches to tie a twig in his hair.

“Stop.”

Chuck snorts. “Make me.”

“I love you, too,” Sam says. And it actually _does_ stop Chuck in his tracks. His hands go still. “And I can love you absent of knowing you, like every other person who believes or has faith. But I _do_ know you and maybe I miss _you_ for _you_ ,” he shrugs against the ground. “Just for you, nerd.”

“Oh, Sam.” He obviously finishes tying the twig into Sam’s hair, though it’s out of his periphery. “You really know how to sweet-talk a guy,” he pats Sam’s cheek and leans in. Pops a kiss on his head and moves to rise.

Sam sits up.

“The vamps,” Chuck repeats. “Angel radio.”

“Yeah,” Sam sighs.

“And calm Castiel down, could you, please? He doesn’t talk to me, anymore, and I know I deserve it, but he fought just as hard as you to keep Dean out of Michael’s hands. I’m pretty sure he’s, like, _severely_ fucked up about this.”

Sam nods, agreeing.

“And tell Jack he’s doing alright. I know it’s rough down there but I don’t _hate_ nephilim. I just didn’t see them doing the world a whole lot of good. I think he’s got the hang of things, though, you know? I mean, don’t you think so?”

“Yeah.”

“And if Rowena has-”

“You can say these things to them, you know?” Sam suggests, standing, dusting himself off. “You could swing by. Stay a while. Have a beer. Brainstorm with us.”

Chuck waves him off. Shoves his hands in his hoodie and starts walking the way they came.

Sam doesn’t think he’s supposed to follow, but he does.

Chuck pauses on the way back down the hill. Sam almost topples over him.

He turns and looks way up at Sam.

“I did know what I was doing. You know? When I set things up and they led to you? When I left you two to protect the planet? It wasn’t a bad idea. One of my best, maybe.”

Sam blinks at him. “I’m about to fight an archangel so I can get locked back in a car nine hours a day with my brother, the King of All Onion Breath, and I get chained to chairs by monsters so often, I’ve thought about carrying my own butt cushion around so I’m at least a little more _comfortable_ when I’m having every pint of blood drained out of me. I just want it perfectly clear that you’re leaving the world in _our hands_ and telling me you’re never even coming back to check in.”

Chuck rolls his eyes. “I didn’t say ‘never’.”

Then he turns to _very obviously_ stare at Sam’s ass.

Frowns and nods. “Anyway, if you wanted a little more cushion on that sucker, all you have to do is ask. I mean, that’s one thing I _can_ take care of right now, unless you wanna lay off the kale smoothies and have some damn fries every once in a while. I made potatoes for a reason, Sam.”

He didn’t say _never_. Sam doesn’t move. Just smiles at him.

Chuck makes a ‘stay there’ kinda gesture and troops back up the hill a little. He walks up behind Sam and jumps on his back.

Sam hefts him by the legs and carries him back down, no problem.

Chuck’s about to say something and then, for the rest of the night and late into the morning, Sam can’t remember anything else he dreams about.

No one on the team comes to get him. Not Mom or Cas.

He wakes at a time that’s too far past lunch and too early for anyone to be making dinner. He wakes and all he can think about is how much he has to do.

He strips, walking into his bathroom, and moves to grab a towel when he finds the clover, tied, upside-down, half-falling-out of his hair.

The twigs aren’t there. But he’s gonna make sure to check before he gets back into bed, because that could be uncomfortable.

Well. Whenever he gets to sleep again, admittedly, it might not be here and it might not be under the best of circumstances.

He turns back to the mirror. His ass is no more or less cushioned than it was.

Sam spins the white clover blossom between his fingers for a moment.

Maybe Chuck won’t find the time to visit him again until he’s old and half-dead. Maybe he never will. Maybe Chuck, in his immeasurable lifespan, will look up over one of the low, scrubby hills he created, one day, and think of Sam and tune in, only to hear silence.

Maybe he won’t ever reach out again. Maybe they’ll fail and kill his world and end all he loves and he won’t have reason to.

Communication is two ways, though.

Sam can keep praying at him and maybe one day it’ll be so much it bugs him.

Maybe one day he’ll stop looking in mirrors and come back to them.

Unlikely though, it seems, considering all the beings Chuck accidentally made and accidentally came to love.

Deliberate or accident, he has gained that love. He’ll protect his home and his refugees and his angel and his mom and snatch Dean from the jaws of Billie herself, if he’s gotta.

Live by example. Show Chuck what love really looks like down here.

Sam can feel Chuck’s prayers, too. His concern and overwhelming worry. Closes his eyes and replays the scene, reviewing Chuck’s concerns like Chuck had done, pressing a looking glass against the multiverse for his son, splayed on the ground, abandoned on that other world, his ashen wings sinking into the soil.

In fact, he’s going to deafen Chuck with the way he prays, from here on out. There is no louder prayer than action taken.

Sam Winchester, beloved of God, opens the hands he had folded around the blossom and gets to work.


End file.
